[Press Release]
Opening Reception with Artist
Friday 18 July 2014, 6 – 8 pm
Xiaoyang has devoted himself exclusively to shanshui (Literally, ‘mountains and water’; the Chinese concept of brush-and-ink landscape painting) art for over ten years. And through all these years, each time Xiaoyang paints, it seems that he is seeking to evoke the archetypal shanshui scroll: the scroll that has endured through thousands of years, through the ravages of time, the invasions of insects, the turmoil of war, and that retains faint, misty traces still discernible on its surface. The scroll, in itself, is shanshui.
When sketching in nature, the artist stands amidst the mountains. When painting in the studio, the scenery reappears in the artist’s mind, and materializes through the movements of his body: the painter and his subject matter become as one, bonded together in a process of mutual cultivation, like polishing a piece of jade.
Excerpted from Sharing Silent Secrets: Cao Xiaoyang’s Way of Shanshui , Gao Shiming
